TEDx Melbourne (2016): Adventurous Minds
Imagineering Literally Out Of This World.
Sarah Jane Pell
TEDxMelbourne's Surprise Speaker
"Talk about effective multi-tasking. In a TEDx world first, Dr Sarah Jane Pell, an Australian artist-astronaut, will be shown delivering a surprise talk to TEDxMelbourne that was filmed while she was both flying a plane and testing a space suit on a trial mission in Colorado, US. Dr Pell, whose passion is extreme performance art in environments as diverse as the ocean floor, Mt Everest and in space, answered the call from TEDx organisers to create a presentation in a unique way and created a seven-minute film. She is part of a space mission called PoSSUM (Polar Suborbital Science in the Upper Mesosphere) that will send up a two-person space shuttle in either June 2018 or 2019 to take photos of a strange noctilucent cloud that glows at night in the summer beyond the auroras in the north and south poles. Dr Pell decided to film her TEDxMelbourne talk while testing a microgravity spacesuit, the Novel IVA (Intra-Vehicular Activity) suit above Boulder, Colorado -- and also piloting a Mooney aircraft up to 12,000ft. And it was hot stuff -- literally..."
The Huffington Post: Anderson, C. TEDxMelbourne’s Surprise Speaker Is Literally Out Of This World, Huffington Post, 3 Aug 2016.
Boulder Daily Camera: Suborbital Spacesuit Testing.
Jason Reimuller, a scientist who is principal investigator at PoSSUM, a Bolder-based outfit involved in suborbital scientific exploration of the upper mesosphere, supervised a test of a spacesuit designed for use in l research aircraft at the Boulder Municipal Airport on Saturday. Dr. Sarah Jane Pell was wearing the spacesuit for testing. Video by Cliff Grassmick. Published on Jul 30, 2016.