Episode 1 — Launching Space Curious with Ainara Santa Eufemia

0:00Cool, we are live. First of all, I would like to say thank you to anyone tuning in for their Space Curious podcast. I have the lovely Ainara with me, who is a space enthusiast, a professional, and someone who is creating great positive waves in the industry of space and helping people with what she loves and what she's passionate about. This podcast is powered by DE Orbit, which is a subsidiary of the recruitment.

0:39business Daniel Ernest Recruitment. So, Ainara, we're just going to go off and talk with just a few quick things on this podcast. And so, the first thing is, if you can just quickly introduce yourself, what you What do you do? Where do you work for? And then we'll just have a conversation about it. Thank you. Thank you so much for your invitation. I'm really happy to be here today with you in the podcast and be your first guest. And all the success and lucky for your career with this interesting idea. Thank you.

1:16And yes, my name is Ainara and I am from Spain. And as you mentioned, I am a professional in the space sector. So, part of my career was developed in the space and industrial sector, but it's something that was It wasn't planned. It wasn't my first location, but now I'm really happy and I'm really let's say motivated participating in such an amazing sector. So, what do you do and how do you do it?. Well, how I started in the space because it's quite curious. I have to study.

1:54geography at the university. So, maybe it's not the something really focus on the space sector, but I had my first opportunity in a company called Deimos. Mhm. Own satellites. And I started my career doing project management activities. So, I had the opportunity to manage internal teams from the operation systems, understand how a mission is doing, having different meetings with the customers, and I started to love the space sector. After that first step, I had the opportunity to work in two additional.

2:32space companies with a different focus. So, after more than 10 years in the space and working in these amazing ideas, I had the opportunity to work with the space images, but as well in how a vision of a satellite mission is building, how to coordinate in different teams, and the last position that they are more focused in the business development where I am trying to open new opportunities in the international market. So, you can imagine that I had the opportunity to meet really interesting people, brilliant people from everywhere in the world. So,.

3:12That is absolutely fantastic. And it just shows when anyone's looking to get into the space industry that the door is open and you can go into so many different areas. It's not just about rockets, it's not just about satellites, it's not just about lunar, it's not just about space mining, which is the next thing now. The barriers to entry now is just open for everyone. Please, anyone that is listening, hearing this podcast, don't think that you may not be right for it because even if you're a geography teacher, the first three letters of geography is geo, and geo can.

3:51take you into so many different avenues. So, even if you're a geography teacher, if you're studying in a university now and you're doing your university degree, please look into this sector cuz it's growing so much and so exponentially. People are saying the job market is dying. In some ways it is, but what is great about the space industry, it's filling the gap to the unfortunate situations that we're having in the technology side. Now, I did mention university and I've got a question for you on here. It was the STEM.

4:29So, if you can give me a bit more information about your how you're inspiring people and what you're doing because I think it's a fascinating story. Yes, I have started to collaborate with one organization here in the Spain. It's called STI Foundation, STI Foundation. Sorry, what was that? Sorry, what was the company?. STI Foundation. Yeah. Okay. An organization that we're creating a really big networking of girls working in the STEM sector, means science, technologies, maths, so.

5:09on. And they find some free time in their schedules just to inspire other young girls. It's really impressive the impact that some individual volunteer has in our real world. And probably it's one of the most motivated projects that I'm collaborating for because I really can see the effect in the girls. They organizing different activities. One of them is that you can guide during one year to a girl, young girl, trying to, um, accompany her, trying to.

5:51listen what they need, and support in all their decisions that they are having to do in the next years related to how to study, where, what type of sector, and what could be the labor opportunities in the future. And the question, what is the age range? So, the girls that you're, uh, bringing the next generation in, what age range are they from and to?. The idea is to start as early as possible because we have seen is that there's, uh, lack of references. Specifically for the girls in the STEM.

6:29careers. So, we organize different conversations in the schools just for children in which we explain in a general basis what is the space sector, for example, from my side, but with other specifically careers. And, uh, trying to give them the opportunity to think bigger, and let's say, delete all the limits that they probably have in mind. Just to give them the possibility to do whatever they want. So, we explain what we do in our day-by-day, we explain about how it works our company, or what.

7:07we did what we study and just to be what we are right now, and it's amazing to see that the girls change their mind, and, uh, they start thinking the possibility to do something near to the STEM careers. So, for us is just our goal. Yeah, I love it, and you've said exactly what is absolutely needed as young as possible because when they get to a certain age, maybe in the teens, mid teens, and they've gone through all, maybe college, it's not been taught by it. So, there's that.

7:44un- not understanding, there's that misunderstanding that it's mainly for men. It's a male-dominated side, but that's only because they're not getting it into it at a young age, and then they fall into something else, and then miss the opportunity. And it's I see it just like sports and athletics. If you find the people young and you know nurture them into it, then they are the elites of the future. So, what you're doing is absolutely extraordinary because you are literally creating the elites of the future and giving.

8:22the girls the communication, the knowledge, and also the And it's I guess it's all about the confidence. Because once they know the subject, that's when the confidence comes, and then that's when they start speaking to another girl, another friend, and then I love the word compounding. So, what you're creating is a compound effect, which yes, at the beginning, it's very slow, and you don't see it, but years down the line, what you've created will compound into an army of professional young ladies who are now.

9:00pioneering in so many different areas. So, your contribution is definitely noted and welcomed, and it's a fantastic thing that you're doing for the sector. So, again, I will uh up When this goes live, I'll put links to obviously the group that you're connected with, and then obviously people can learn more about that as well. What Another question, actually, is it just focused in Spain, or is it an international, national, European group that you're you've you're working with?. Currently, it's based in the Spain. They.

9:37are trying to open, let's say, subsidiaries. And what part of Spain?. They have different places. They are based They are based in Valladolid. They are based in everywhere because the idea is to have something presentially. Just to read all of the mentoring girls and just to share this initiative in the different schools. But at the end, all the mentor sessions that we are doing with the students, for example, we are able to do it virtually. So, that is to, let's say, have a.

10:15balance between our professional careers, our these initiatives, and so on. So,. Yeah. I hope they are doing a really great job. So, I hope they will be able to do it internationally, but for sure I'm sure that there are a lot of organizations, a lot of girl groups that are doing similar actions because it's something more common nowadays. The numbers in terms of the number of girls are studying STEM careers, they need to be increased. Absolutely. People are more conscious about that. There are like three main pillars when we talk about.

10:54this situation. One of them is the vocation. If you have a vocation when you are a child, that's perfect. Everything is easier, I think. But if you don't know what to do with your life, the pressure increase. And you have to take decisions in a moment that it's very difficult for you. You think this is the most important decision in your life, and we have to share with them that this is really important. But if it's non-linear, they will have options to modify, change, go back, and move forward in the future. So, it's really important to.

11:32they don't have this vocation show them a wide range of opportunities with references. This is the second main pillar for that conversation. Because let's say we need to break the barriers in terms of why girls are not studying STEM careers. Because sometimes it's just a matter because they don't receive a good way to teach the maths. So, that's quite simple because at the end of STEMs are more than maths. There are a lot of soft skills needed to work in this world, in this STEM world.

12:10that it's independently of the maths, for example. And the third pillar is the limits, the glass ceiling that we mentioned, the impost let's say that there are a really lack of confidence on the girls that they are not allowing to get higher positions. And the values are there, so we need to push all together to having or yes, having the opportunity to select what they want to do without any type of limit. Yeah, exactly. That is a fantastic explanation and as you've.

12:50explained eloquently as well, it's the education, it's the communication which will give the girls the confidence in thinking ah, okay, it's the soft skills in this area I can actually develop. And also just direct them, pinpoint them that okay, with these grades that you're going for, this is what it can bring you into and it will just give you more opportunities and options. And I guess it's always that thing where you look at it's just built in with boys and girls. The boys normally just a bullish so they go through and they'll just try and do it and do anything where it's girls, not all, I'm talking about the average.

13:28guys, by the way, the average, so don't pull me up on this, but with boys it tends to not be afraid to make as many mistakes, but with girls it's they seem a bit more reserved when it's going into these things. It's all, what happens if I look silly? What happens if I don't know what I'm talking about? What happens if there's too many males in this environment? The thing is, if we keep asking those questions, we're never going to go into it. We should be thinking, what if it works out? What if I do well? What if I can now inspire someone else to take that leap that I took, and then someone else will do it.

14:07as well. Another question for you. So, what and you may have touched on this, what inspired you to get into space? What was it? A passion? Did you Did you have a rocket as a child? Did you have a telescope, binoculars? What was it about space?. In my case, it's not a matter of vocation. So, I started to work in the sector, and I just find an amazing area. Since the rockets, as you mentioned, the missions to Mars, to the moon, and but probably I think that the most inspiring thing in the sector is how we.

14:48work in team. Because to create a satellite or create a mission, just since the design and paper until you can launch to the space, there are participating a lot of people from all the fields, as you can imagine. And you need to be really good communicating. You need to collaborate, and you can get really a big projects for that. So, probably it's more how do you have to work in the sector that the sector itself. That space is amazing, course. We have some weeks ago the Artemis mission. We can see in live.

15:28how the mission is orbiting and so on and that's impressive. New technologies that start developing for the sector. But teamwork is really amazing. Exactly. And for the audience as well who are interested in the satellites or they may be thinking I don't need a satellite. It's not going to affect me. It's not going to help me. For the audience that are a bit unsure about what you do, can you give one or maybe two points of what the benefit is to actually for what you do and how it is helping humanity can help humanity. So,.

16:06if you can just say what it's doing now a small segment and how it could look like in maybe 15 years. The other space is increasing and they are covering a lot of applications. So, if we talk how is the advantages of the space or how we can use in our benefit the space. In my case that I work with satellites that acquire images from the space, they permit to have a big picture of our world. So, we can monitorize what is happening there. So, we can talk about applications for our protect.

16:45environmental. Let's say we talk about how to measure methane for example, but we can support our emergency teams when there's a disaster like a flood or like an earthquake and you can use the space for that. It's how to organize or build our cities because you can, let's say, monitorize them. We can make a studies about how our eyes is moving, increasing or decreasing the area it's you can imagine the number of projects and use cases that you can do or develop with.

17:25the space sector. And specifically with my field that is the earth observation. It's just amazing. Perfect. And what's your take in maybe 10 15 years? Cuz obviously technology, do you know AI, very deep machine learning research. I've forgotten the other technology that I was just which escaped me. Everything's moving so quick. I've forgotten what it's called. It'll come to me later. But anyway, but quantum technology as well, quantum computing. Is it agentic AI? Yeah, agentic AI. So everything's moving so quick. So what we've done today in.

18:05only maybe 6 months, some of that stuff is obsolete and we've moved on again. But I'm going to put you on the spot here and ask what do you see maybe the potential in 10 or 15 years that we are not doing now, but you would predict from statistical analytical thinking of what the satellite could do for us or what your area could do for the world. I think it's impossible to imagine how the space sector are going to change because I'm going to use the same.

18:46sentence that I am using with the girls while we are talking about the sector. There's no limits. So please think that there's no limits and this is the idea. The sector is growing so fast. It's changing continuously. So I don't know, but probably we will see the missions to Mars for sure because there are a lot of projects. We come back to the moon for sure, but I think that we will see a lot of collaborations between countries, synergies, but development. And I think that there's an increase in the in terms.

19:25of how to protect or how to be more equal in terms of the space sector. This is a important topic right now. So, we'll invent something just to focus on that. Completely agree. It's unlimited. The only limitation is our mind. So, if we limit our mind, then there's going to be limitations. If we open our mind, then it is endless what we could create. And there's so much to stuff going on in the space sector now, and it's so exciting. I think one question that I may have missed, and do correct me if you've.

20:04already asked this one, is what still are there barriers of entry young girls are entering facing in STEM? And what challenges are there are challenges because they're a girl, female? Is there any challenges there at the moment, or is there more investment going on? I think that there's a really solid and experienced group of girls working in the space sector right now. Mhm. The main point is how to share our experiences with the new generation. Yeah.

20:41Because probably we will recommend to all of them to go into the STEM and specifically in the space sector, for sure. One of the areas with more opportunities in the future, new technologies, artificial intelligence. It's a key moment to study, to increase the knowledge about that. Probably just the barrier that we have right now is how to get the attention from the girls, how to support them to go deeper in this sector. Yes.

21:18But it's not just a matter of girls, it's just a matter of that we have a lot of talent. And we need to boost them to create, to imagine, to be curious, and once again, we have no limits. Yeah, exactly. And you I think you've touched on this as well, because getting different It's not just about the girls as well. It's getting people from different backgrounds. Because it's how Because if you get the same type of person in the same industry doing the same job, you're always going to have the same result. So, that specific person will be using a portion.

21:56of the left brain, a portion of the right brain, maybe more on the or less on the creative and more on the kind of analytical side. So, they're going to miss that they will miss things. They will miss things. For example, like putting a better comfy toilet on a space mission. But little things like this, where people will just be thinking analytical, how can we do it? Very rigid. But the when you've got someone using the other side of the brain, they're thinking, "Huh, okay. Someone's going to be in this little capsule. How are they going to feel? What instruments around them? What.

22:35are What are dangers going to be there for this person as well in terms of sharp objects and stuff? Or you maybe try to reduce the weight, but is there something else that could harm the astronaut?" So, what you're saying is completely true, because you have to get different people who think differently, that will challenge each other and have arguments, good arguments and discussions. And I think that's I think that's why space is expanding, the industry is expanding so quick, because there's so many different brilliant minds coming together now and they're asking different questions versus the same questions that were asked again and again. We are running out of time, but.

23:14I've got a quick-fire question for you here. So, you need to be ready and you need to be prepared. I'm trying to find my notes. So, let me see where what I've just done with them. My phone just keeps going on a Okay, where is it? Where is it? Where is it? Where is it? Where is it? Where is it? Okay, here we go. So, very quick questions. What's one piece of advice for a 15-year-old girl interested in the space of someone who sees this or the parent sends them to this. A 15-year-old.

23:55girl is listening, what's the one piece of advice you would give to her?. I just have to say that be curious. Because you're curious, you continuously thinking how to go far away. And you get how to be involved in the space sector. So, yeah, be curious. Be prepared for that. Perfect. Curiosity creates more imagination, more thinking, and more caring. So, I love that. Okay, so that was one. A myth about the space industry.

24:34Probably the most of the people think that who are working in the space sector is someone who is really brilliant in maths and they are just reading continuously or something like this. And there are a lot of ways to participate or to involved in the space sector. Not just as an engineer, for example, but you can be part of the communication teams. You can be part of the marketing team, human resources, legal department, so it's not just a matter of aerospace engineer.

25:12Love it. Absolutely love it. So, exactly, that is one myth because everyone just thinks you have to be the most brilliant, brightest in maths and science and triple science and quantum physics, quantum mechanics, string theory, and all this stuff, but there's so many different avenues you can get into it, guys. I'm excited about this because the market is expanding and there's so many opportunities for what they would call the average person. So, next question. Now, I've asked you about the myth about aerospace, uh a skill that will matter most in the next 10 years. Space-related.

25:50Probably your resilience. Yes. Okay. The sector is changing really quick, so you need to be prepared for all the change and to participate actively. Love it. Love it. And again, I know we've touched on this before, but what excites you the most about the future of space?. Oof. I'm excited to see where the sector goes, but if I have to say just one thing or one project, I would like.

26:28to see if we get Mars. Yes. Yes. I've always Again, I know everyone knows the Elon Musk story about when he was a boy, he's always wanted to go to Mars, so that was his burning desire, that's his obsession. This is why he's put People that don't know, Elon Musk has got a company called The Boring Company, as in boring tunneling as well. So, what would you need when you go to Mars? You're going to obviously need proper equipment and know-how to bore and tunnel. He's obviously got Tesla with the batteries and it's not just about the cars. It's a data, it's mining, it's navigation cuz.

27:06every single person that owns a Tesla, every single time you're driving, he is collecting data so he understands traffic, he understands terrain, and also obviously with the battery side as well. I don't see us using ice internal combustion engines at all when it comes to this. There's going to be a next phase of how things are going to be powered, fusion, electric, battery. He'll be doing all that stuff. So, people that know of the fraction of Elon Musk, I believe he's put all these companies together because when he goes to Mars, he is going to be going to be if anyone watches I'm a bit of a geek.

27:44but Transformers. It's the fire that's going to transform into something and then make maybe transform into something a bit bigger. But yeah, so I'll go off and talk about that to you about it. So, the next thing is in fact before we close, is there anything that I haven't asked you that you wanted to answer or you wanted to mention at all before we close off this fantastic podcast?. Yes, the last sentence, hopefully you motivate this sentence is make visible is to give the permission to dream about it. So, thanks for the opportunity to talk about.

28:25space sector but also about the initiatives, about how to support our next generation to let's say about the pressure about the future and permit to dream about big projects. Yeah, dream is all about dreaming big and it's about curiosity and it is it's like it's looking up. It's looking at the stars and having that wonder, that wow, that we are here and if you zoom out and zoom out, you can't even see Earth and it's what is out there and we.

29:07will find out. We just need to be more curious as you said and we need to keep dreaming. So, I added for people that are not connected with you on LinkedIn or other social media. Well, what's the best thing? So, someone sees this now and said, "Oh, we're in Spain. I've got children, girls and they're interested. How can people get in contact with you? What's the best way?". So, probably the best way is to So, we can with them my full profile just for any conversation. I will be more than happy to connect with the people and share more about the initiative use.

29:45about the space sector and so on. But as well, probably the people that we are involved in the space sector, we can meet in any event globally because I'm traveling a lot on that. Now, I'm currently working on an space Spanish company called Isdetech. So, probably we can see in some events. But for sure, we are open to connect wherever you want. We can share as well the email so on. So, happy to connect with all of them. I absolutely love it. So, going off your LinkedIn, open space earth observation, international business development, MBA, STEM girl mentoring. It's been an.

30:26absolute pleasure talking with you, having conversation with you and you are the first guest on the Space Curious podcast and it's been an absolute blast. Thank you very much. Thank you so much for the opportunity and again good luck. And if you want to come back, I can be on your response also. 100% 100% we'll have you back. Thank you so much. Thank you so much. Okay, that's it. All done. All recorded. All transcribed. So, what I'm going to do is I'll go to the lab over the.

31:04weekend. I'll put all together. I'm figuring out where I'm going to where I'm going to do it. I am creating a I've already created a YouTube podcast. So, that will all go on there, but I want to get on to other platforms as well. Yeah. And then what I'm potentially going to do as well is chop some stuff up and just do it segments and then get the whole thing as well. So, on LinkedIn it may just be segment after segment. But then there'll be a link to the full podcast, but you've been absolutely amazing. Thank you. Thank you so much. I really appreciate your time. I know it's late in the.

31:41evening for you and you are mega busy. But yeah, it's it really warms my heart that you connected with me on LinkedIn. You've connected with the Space Curious group as well and you're the first person to be on the podcast. I am beyond words and very grateful and appreciative of your time put into this. So, thank you so much. Thank you. It was my pleasure. And it was my first time participating in the podcast in English. English, yes. I know and your language in English language is unbelievably.

32:20fantastic. Unbelievably fantastic. That I was worried about the participation was the e-place. Yeah. So, no, absolutely fantastic. Unfortunately, I don't speak a word of Spanish apart from the basic hola, gracias and that's pretty much it. But yeah, I my ambition is hopefully I will do more business in Spain cuz that's where I want to relocate to. But, we shall see. We shall see. It's good to talk with you once again. If you need something from my side, yes, you have my contact, so yes, let me know and hope that the result is great. I will send to everybody and I am really.

33:01excited to see what we have for a person. Me, too. Okay. Thank you so much. You have a great evening. Take care. Thank you. Bye now. Okay, bye-bye.