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Quest Means Business
France Looks into Telegram's Role in Criminal Activity; Israel, Hezbollah Pull Back after Intense Cross-Border Fire; Harris, Trump Campaigns Spar Over Muted Mic Debate Issue. SpaceX Polaris Dawn Mission Set To Launch Early Tuesday; SpaceX To Make History With First Private Spacewalk; NASA: SpaceX To Retrieve Astronauts After Extended ISS Stay. Aired 4-5p ET
Aired August 26, 2024 - 16:00:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[16:00:12]
RICHARD QUEST, CNN INTERNATIONAL HOST, "QUEST MEANS BUSINESS": Closing bell ringing on Wall Street. Together, we are going to start a new day, a new
week. You see the Dow is now just up a smidgen, it is up about 70 odd points.
Now, come on, let's have a look, hit the final gavel. That is a pathetic tepid gavel, but then it is the physical therapy association, so I am
guessing that they don't want to strain any wrists or anything like that.
Those are the markets and the main events of the day.
The CEO of Telegram is in French custody. Prosecutors reveal his arrest is part of a broad investigation to criminal activity on Telegram.
A count down for SpaceX. SpaceX commercial mission, which will have the first commercial space walk.
And Australia adopts a law that gives people the right to disconnect from work.
Live from New York, together, we start new week on Monday, August 26th. I am Richard Quest, in New York, as elsewhere, I mean business.
Good evening.
French prosecutors say that tonight, the founder of Telegram is in police custody, investigating criminal activity on Telegram, which is the
encrypted messaging app.
Its Pavel Durov, and he was detained on Saturday when his private jet arrived in Paris from Azerbaijan. Authorities say they are looking into
whether Telegram is complicit in crimes like money laundering, drug trafficking, and child pornography by not releasing information requested
and required by the French authorities.
Telegram says it abides by EU laws, and Durov has nothing to hide.
Clare Duffy is with me.
Anyone who knows about Telegram, I mean, it is a hotbed of nefarious activity in many different ways for the purchase of narcotics and this,
that, and the other. But nobody is suggesting that Durov himself is involved in that, are they?
CLARE DUFFY, CNN BUSINESS WRITER: Well, Richard, what we know at this point is that yes, they believe that the French seem to be investigating this.
They say crime that happened dating back to July 8. You know, whether Telegram was complicit in fraud, in money laundering, and in child sexual
abuse material trafficking, drug trafficking and I think the key point here is what you mentioned at the end of your intro there, whether Telegram was
willing to hand over information and documents related to that investigation.
It sounds like up until this point, Telegram has not agreed to do that and that is why we now see CEO, Pavel Durov in police custody and this really
gets at the heart of this debate that is happening across the social media ecosystem: How do you balance free speech with protecting users and
avoiding illegal activity happening on your platforms?
Telegram has certainly fallen much more strongly in the camp of free speech. This is an encrypted app, which means that the platform itself
doesn't have a lot of control or oversight in terms of how people are using the platform and law enforcement also doesn't have a lot of oversight in
terms of the kinds of conversations that are happening here.
Durov has sort of become this champion of free speech, and so you can understand why, given the fact that he said he is focused on protecting the
privacy of his users, he wouldn't want to hand over its user data.
QUEST: Okay, right. So let us work our way up the scale if you will. You've got SMS messaging, if you will, that's just about anybody and their brother
can read that in terms of law enforcement.
You've then got WhatsApp which makes a huge fuss about its encryption and that its end-to-end encryption, but it is still not as high and it still is
possible to get, and then you have Telegram and those that are like Telegram and their argument is look, you can't have encryption only for the
good guys, I suppose is what they say.
DUFFY: That's the point. I think, you know, Telegram has become this really important communication tool in places like Russia and Iran where free
speech is curtailed. It has also become an important tool in Ukraine where citizens are warning each other of air raids, but that same privacy that
helps people in countries that are facing oppression also means that criminals can use this app to do things like, again, money laundering, drug
trafficking. This is a platform that is really popular with terrorist groups and far-right extremists.
But it is interesting because Telegram does have some control over the platform. Just a few weeks ago, Telegram said that it was removing calls to
violence after reports that it was involved in helping organizers organize those UK -- violent UK riots that we saw.
Telegram also previously removed some channels associated with Hamas after the outbreak of the Hamas-Israel war last year, so it does have some
control.
[16:05:08]
It says that it doesn't allow calls to violence, for example, but I think this sort of this question of how -- who gets to decide what is harmful
content and what this platform needs to remove? Clearly, the French government thinks that it is not doing a good enough job.
QUEST: And of course, there will be EU issues there as well. I am grateful, Clare. Thank you very much.
As for Pavel Durov himself, he granted CNN a rare interview in 2016. A few months earlier, the French officials had discovered terrorists used
Telegram to carry out the Paris terror attacks and Durov said, end-to-end encryption is an all or nothing proposition.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
PAVEL DUROV, CEO, TELEGRAM: You cannot make messaging technology secure for everybody except for terrorists. You cannot make it safe for -- against
criminals and open for governments, so it is either secure or not secure.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
QUEST: Matias Dewey is there, senior researcher at the University of St. Gallen in Switzerland. He studies encrypted messaging apps and how they are
used in illegal markets.
I read the fascinating report that you've put together on this.
Telegram, I mean, look I ask, if you spend half an hour, 20 minutes, 15 minutes in the right chat groups, et cetera, you will find things of
nefarious narcotic and illegal abilities. What can Telegram do about that?
MATIAS DEWEY, SENIOR RESEARCHER, UNIVERSITY OF ST. GALLEN IN SWITZERLAND: Well, I mean, thank you very much.
Telegram is an application that actually takes continuously illegal trade of different types of products -- drugs, images that originated in sexual
abuse of children. I mean, there is way for people to understand how Telegram groups work. It is to imagine a family group on WhatsApp, but also
with thousands of members.
QUEST: But is the anonymity, isn't it, because you know, the ability -- I mean, law enforcement can go into those groups as well and see who is in
there, but they can't see private messages encrypted end-to-end and there is a veil of secrecy over those participants.
DEWEY: Certainly, the main -- Telegram is the king of this type of messaging application because of the anonymity features. But also not only
that, I mean, this is part of the story.
The other part of the story is that Telegram doesn't cooperate with authorities because I give an example. Meta has also encryption features.
Not all the features Telegram has, for example, encryption, it offers encrypted communication but Meta does cooperate with authority and that is
a problem with Telegram.
QUEST: Okay, so we've got two things here. We have two issues. We have the -- either unwillingness or inability of them to remove stuff from the site
and from the platform and you have the unwillingness to cooperate, which I think is essentially what Durov has been arrested over, Telegram is
refusing to cooperate. Which of those is more serious -- the lack of cooperation or the refusal to remove?
DEWEY: I mean, I would say both. The lack of cooperation, it is more I would say, it is as responsibility of the company to cooperate with
authorities because this is a global service.
But then enforcement is in charge of local authorities in every country, and then what happens at least in my interviews with law enforcement
authorities is that they say we know the groups, we know where it is happening, but the problem is that we cannot do anything because the
company doesn't cooperate.
On the other hand the problem is the features, the company keeps developing features in order to make communication even more difficult to trace.
QUEST: So is the answer or part of the answer the refusal so of say Apple and the other -- iOS and the other operating systems to refuse to have
Telegram pressure, being put to bear, to refuse to put Telegram on their app stores, unless they clean up their act.
[16:10:08]
DEWEY: No, I don't think so. I mean, Telegram is well-known because it doesn't cooperate with authorities and users know that. Users know that the
company is not cooperating. I don't see the problem in other companies that don't mind that they don't want to have Telegram on the app stores.
I think that every user even more, people who are operating in the illegal markets, they know that and this is the reason because they use the app.
QUEST: I am grateful for you, sir. Thank you very much for joining us.
DEWEY: Oh, you're welcome. Thank you.
QUEST: Thank you.
Now, other stories: Israel's military chief-of-staff says the country will continue to degrade Hezbollah's abilities and eliminate its commanders. The
comment comes after a major exchange of fire over the weekend.
Israel says it preemptively struck Hezbollah targets in Lebanon on Sunday to prevent wider attacks. Hezbollah then launched hundreds of rockets and
drones towards Israel in response to the killing of a top commander by Israel last month. Both sides are declaring victory and for the moment it
appears, wider conflicts have been averted.
Jim Sciutto is in Tel Aviv this evening.
Good evening, Jim. Thanks for staying up late.
Look, Jim do a balance for me as to where we stand? Now we've had this vigorous exchange of armament, where do we stand tonight?
JIM SCIUTTO CNN ANCHOR AND CHIEF NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Richard, I don't think we should underestimate how much we or the region dodged a
bullet yesterday, because there was enormous anticipation, quite understandable all of Hezbollah's retaliation for the killing of its
commander a number of weeks ago by Israel.
Yesterday, we had an enormous exchange of fire along the border, but then it stopped and Israel clearly had intelligence prior to the launching of
the bulk of this attack and was able to take it out, take out the firing positions, preemptively, and then Hezbollah launched what appeared to be a
smaller attack than planned and then somewhat declared victory and said, that is our response for now.
It could have been much, much worse had Hezbollah managed to launch those many hundreds of rockets and missiles as Israel said it was planning, had
some of those struck civilian targets. You can imagine what the Israeli response might be.
So you had some calibration by both sides and by the way, Israel, keeping its attacks to the southern part of Lebanon, there have been concern about
it expanding up to and around Beirut, perhaps. That's a precipice we were quite close to, but didn't fall into, and I think we shouldn't
underestimate the importance of that and also just how close the region got without tripping into the abyss as it were.
QUEST: How much of this is Iran's retaliation in a sense for what Israel did there? I mean, are we still waiting? Are we still waiting, pardon the
colloquial phrase, for the big one, from Iran for what Israel did in Tehran?
SCIUTTO: There does seem to be an expectation that each will have its own response because Hezbollah was responding to the killing of a commander on
its territory, Iran has promised revenge for the killing of the Hamas leader on Iranian territory. So the expectation is that Iran will do
something, right? Although they have said -- Iranian leaders have said publicly, not right away.
I will say Richard, there is another element to this is that Israel with US help seems to have effectively neutralize may be too strong a word, but
reduced the effectiveness of Hezbollah's ability to fire with all those missiles and rockets and it did similar in April when Iran fired a number
of missiles and drones, a large number of missiles and drones at Israel, that you have exposed some -- I don't know if vulnerability is the right
word, or at least the limits of each's ability to attack Israel.
That's not to say they couldn't attempt something bigger, perhaps overwhelm Israel's defenses. But in each instance, Israel showed, it does have
ability to blunt their ability to strike and that is important. That has got to give leaders in Iran and in Hezbollah some pause.
QUEST: And that's something we need to talk about next time we speak where we've got more time. Jim, I am curious about this idea, with your
experience, of course in all of these things why they bother sending so many missiles across when they know they are going to be shot -- that's a
subject for us to talk about later in the week.
I am grateful, sir. Good to have your time.
SCIUTTO: Okay. Cheers.
QUEST: Now, how about this? It is Subset Divisions 6, Subsection 333(M) and it is called the Employee Right to Disconnect. You may refuse to monitor,
read, or respond to contact, et cetera, et cetera outside of hours. It is a new law in Australia. We will talk about it and whether it helps restore
the work-life balance. What's that?
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[16:18:03]
QUEST: Donald Trump is campaigning heavily this week in swing states as he tries to stall Kamala Harris' momentum. The former president was in
Michigan where he was speaking. Now, he goes to Wisconsin and Pennsylvania later in the week and he started the day in Virginia where he seemed to
question whether next month's presidential debate on ABC News will actually happen.
He says the rules keep changing.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We are thinking about it. We are thinking about it. They also want to change the rules. You know,
the deal was we keep the same rules. Now, all of a sudden they want to make a change in the rules.
We agreed to the same rules. I don't know, it doesn't matter to me. I'd rather have it probably on, but the agreement was that it would be the same
as it was last time.
In that case, it was muted. I didn't like it the last time, but it worked out fine. I mean, ask Biden now it worked out, it was fine.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
QUEST: Kristen Holmes is in Detroit.
All right, now, it is all about whether the mics should be muted or not, or at least that is one of the issues. Who is saying what?
KRISTEN HOLMES, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: All right, so Donald Trump's team says that when they agreed to do the debate with Kamala Harris, they
were agreeing to the same rules that they had agreed to with President Joe Biden for the CNN debate, which meant that the mics would be muted.
Kamala Harris' team now says, well, that was a different thing that you made an agreement to. I was not at the top of the ticket. I believe, and
that's the campaigns saying they want their mics open, essentially, there is a belief that they want to have Donald Trump have a hot mic and Donald
Trump's team doesn't want him to be able to be caught on camera or on microphone talking in-between them actually having the floor.
Now, the interesting part about this is twofold. One is the fact that Donald Trump seem actually heavily complained when they originally had
these rules for the debate, when the CNN debate came out saying they wanted the mics to be unmuted, then they came to believe, closer to the debate and
through the debate that it was a good thing that Donald Trump did not have an unmuted mic in front of him.
[16:20:06]
The other part of this that is interesting is we have to remember that so much of this is just a jockeying between these two campaigns to get what
they think is best for their candidate. I just want to remind you what happened, Richard, just a few weeks ago when Kamala Harris was moved to the
top of the ticket, Donald Trump essentially dropped out of the debate for a short period and Kamala Harris' team was saying, wait, you already agreed
to this. It doesn't matter who is at the top of the ticket, you agreed to this debate.
Donald Trump's team was saying no, everything has changed now. Now, you see a complete reversal in which Harris is team is saying, well, wait, you
agreed to something completely different because I am at the top of the ticket now and Donald Trump seemed to say no, everything was the same that
we agreed to.
This is politics, this is spin, this is them trying to figure out how exactly to best make their candidate look good on the stage on September
10th.
QUEST: So why would Vice President Harris want an open mic with the risk that she can be interrupted and blunder bust through. Is it exactly the
hope that Trump makes a fool of himself or comes off worse?
HOLMES: Well, to be clear, I don't cover Harris' campaign, so I don't have the inside knowledge as to this, but of course, knowing Donald Trump and
having covered Donald Trump for two years, I don't think it is a far leap to say that, yes, he would talk during her speaking. Yes, he would probably
make snide asides. Yes, if he got frustrated, he would probably be saying things that maybe his campaign doesn't want him saying on an open mic.
And then likely, the Harris campaign would want him saying those things because it is something they can highlight about the former president as
they head into these critical last three-month stage.
Donald Trump has a hard part-time staying on message as it is. Donald Trump, it is very easy for him to get off message and also to get under his
skin by these other candidates.
So whether or not that would happen, we don't know, but Kamala Harris' team seems to be banking on that when they push for these open mics.
QUEST: Good to see you. Thank you.
Now, Australians are free to ignore their bosses when they receive work- related messages, e-mails, and calls after hours.
It is the Fair Work Legislation Amendment Closing Loopholes Number Two Bill of 2024, Section 333 (M). It is called the Employees Right to Disconnect.
It protects employees from any punishment if they refuse to respond to employers when they are off the clock. You can still reach out in an
emergency.
Supporters say it keeps work from encroaching on people's lives. A trend they say that has got worse since the pandemic.
With me is Gabrielle Golding, senior lecturer in law at the University of Adelaide. She joins me now.
I was going to say, thank goodness, you're not in Adelaide, it would be middle of the night there if you were, but no, civilized hour for you.
You're in Edinburgh in Scotland now.
This is sort of a common sense piece of legislation where it just worked elsewhere because it is all requiring about unreasonable, this isn't it?
And you can also buy your way out of it.
GABRIELLE GOLDING, SENIOR LECTURER IN LAW, UNIVERSITY OF ADELAIDE: Well, that is exactly right. So this right as we have it, applies to the majority
of Australian employees as of today being the 26th August, those that work in small businesses have one extra year to wait. So the right will start
operating for them next year at the same date.
But you're quite right that this right operates in so far as the right to refuse that contact from one's employer is reasonable in the circumstances.
QUEST: And it depends on managerial level, it also depends on whether you are paid extra. You can actually -- you can actually be paid to have -- to
be bothered, can't you?
GOLDING: Yes, that's quite right, you can be paid to be bothered.
So, if you have an on-call allowance as part of your pay that you take home and you're paid for that time that you're contactable so that you paid for
the working time then that's absolutely fine to be contacted in that time.
QUEST: There are two problems with this piece of legislation. The first is enforcement and the second is monitoring. Which employee other than some
bolshie whatever is going to go to HR and say, I am getting bothered too much out of work under the Fair Work Legislation Amendment Closing Loophole
et cetera. Who is going to do that and then expect to have their career progress?
GOLDING: Yes, look, that's absolutely a fair question and I think we will see whether this law has any teeth to it as time progresses on to see
whether employees are indeed utilizing it in the way that they are that is inevitably allowed to under the Fair Work Act.
And I would say too that there is actually a requirement under the Fair Work Act that that conversation must happen at the workplace level first
before an employee takes any complaint to the Fair Work Commission.
[16:25:10]
QUEST: It is a great idea, but is it realistic and it is workable? And I understand we are talking about very different levels. If I said to my
bosses, don't call me or message me out of work. In my job, they would say Quest, your paid enough, get on with it.
And so I can sort of see, it has got to be apples and oranges or apples and pears or whatever.
GOLDING: Yes, look, I think it is going to be workable for those employees, particularly in knowledge-based work that are constantly contacted on e-
mails, phone calls, and the like. I think those employees in particular, will see some benefit from it and hopefully at least a bit of a shift in
workplace culture and societal approach to this.
QUEST: That's it.
GOLDING: Yes, and I think that --
QUEST: It is culture, isn't it? It is about -- it is not about the letter of it. It is about creating a culture where employers, bosses think twice.
GOLDING: That's exactly right, and I think that from the parliamentary debate that we saw in the lead up to this bill passing into an act, we
certainly saw that that was the intention, that politicians had in passing this through into legislation.
QUEST: Well, I hope we are not bothering -- well, we are bothering you. It is at half past nine at night in Scotland, but very kind of you for joining
us. Grateful. Thank you.
GOLDING: My pleasure. Thanks for having me.
QUEST: So, the SpaceX Polaris Mission is set to launch in a matter of hours and please, God, all goes well. The first spacewalk done by private
astronauts.
Leroy Chiao has competed his share of spacewalks for NASA. Here he is in 2005, he will join me after the break.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[16:30:00]
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
RICHARD QUEST, CNN INTERNATIONAL ANCHOR: An astronaut floating weightlessly in the vastness of space of experience you will ever know. But the
commercial space industry hopes to give more people a chance to experience exactly that. So, the historic SpaceX Polaris Dawn mission is set to launch
early on Tuesday morning. Jared Isaacman is the commander of this private four-person crew. The billionaire is funding the Polaris program and has
been to space before.
If all goes well, he and crewmate will conduct the first ever commercial spacewalk during the five-day mission. It's the -- the vehicle itself is
going to reach an orbit of 870, miles, 1400 kilometers. That's the furthest that any astronaut has been since the Apollo program.
Kristin Fisher is in Washington. This is fascinating. It's absolutely extraordinary.
KRISTIN FISHER, CNN SPACE AND DEFENSE CORRESPONDENT: I mean, Richard, this is one of the coolest human space -- human space missions of the modern
era. I have to say, you know, you have the first commercial spacewalk and, you know, on top of that, they're going to be testing out this brand-new
spacesuit that's never been flown before in the vacuum of space. The entire spacecraft is going to open up to allow them to all experience what it's
like to be in space.
And then on top of that, as you were talking about, they're going to be going very far into space, farther than any human since the end of the
Apollo program. And the real critical thing here is that they're going to be going through the radiation belt, a part of space where there's this
really intense radiation, and that's important, because that's what humans and spacecrafts are going to have to go through if they want to get to Mars
someday.
QUEST: Obviously, SpaceX enormously experienced now and has an exceptional record on safety, but still, this is pushing the boundary. Are we -- are we
legitimate? Here's a good one for you, before we get to the official astronaut. Are we -- are we legitimate calling Isaacson an astronaut, a
private astronaut, a civilian astronaut? What is he? Besides rich?
FISHER: I don't think there's an official definition yet. Everybody has their own terms that they prefer, so to speak. But I think what's different
about this mission is that it goes way beyond a space tourism mission. In fact, I think it's unfair to call this a space tourism mission, because
what this is really is a test and development program. Jared Isaacman, the billionaire businessman who's partially funding this mission, he is trying
to advance SpaceX's technologies and advance human exploration into space.
And so, you know, what they're doing is they're doing things that SpaceX needs to accomplish in order for them to fulfill their ultimate vision of
getting to Mars. And so, they went to SpaceX and were like, what do you need? And the first thing on their list, of course, is testing out this
spacesuit. So essentially, they're their guinea pigs. And two of the crew members are actually SpaceX employees.
One of them is SpaceX's the lead astronaut trainer. She's never been in space before. And so, Jared and SpaceX wanted to fly her because, you know,
if you're training other astronauts, they thought it would be a good idea to make sure that person had firsthand experience herself.
QUEST: Who's the captain?
FISHER: Jared Isaacman, and he's no rookie. You know, he flew to space before, on SpaceX's inspiration for mission, which he of course, partially
funded three years ago.
QUEST: Good lord. You'll be -- what you've got a (INAUDIBLE) busy few days ahead of you and talking to me will be part of it. Thank you very much.
Really grateful to you. Thank you.
FISHER: Thanks.
QUEST: Now the spacewalk is scheduled for day three. It's going to be risky. You've just heard it's a new space suit and the Dragon capsule
doesn't have an airlock. So, everybody inside will feel the vacuum of space.
Leroy Chiao is the commander at the International Space Station in 2004.
[16:35:03]
This is -- these are pictures of his many space walks. You can see he's with me now. Sir, honored to have you with us. Just tell me, what do you
make of what they're doing up there?
LEROY CHIAO, FORMER ASTRONAUT, INTERNATIONAL SPACE STATION: Well, there's a little bit eyebrow raising for a couple of reasons. Number one, as you've
pointed out, you know, these are not professionals. They've been trained to be fair. They've been accomplished other things but, you know, they're not
professionals. They haven't done this before. It's a brand-new spacesuit. Never been tested actually in space.
Number two, they are going to vent the cabin, the entire cabin, down to vacuum. And of course, that's a pretty big risk because you've got to
repressurize it and make sure all the seals are going to hold and none of the equipment is going to fail because it's been exposed to vacuum. So,
there is some risk involved in this. No question about it.
QUEST: Here's the tougher question. Do you think it's a reasonable risk that they're running?
CHIAO: I actually do. You know, after my eyebrows raised a little bit, I thought about it and, you know, I know several of the people over there at
SpaceX and I used to do some consulting work for them for a number of years and I know that they take safety very seriously and they know how bad it
would be if there were to be some kind of an accident. And so, I have confidence that they've, you know, thoroughly done everything that they can
to make sure that this thing happens safely.
But, you know, it's exciting. I have to say that I am for commercial space. I am for missions like this, because it's kind of a natural progression.
The government funds these big programs, figures out the technology, figures out how to do it, and then the commercial side comes over and
starts, you know, building off of that. So, all in all, I think this is a great thing and I wish those guys great success.
QUEST: Couple of other areas. I cannot have an astronaut on the program without sort of other things. The astronauts that are stuck on the space
station because Boeing's craft can't get them back. And they're -- now look, I understand. They're mentally prepared. They -- I mean, it's grim
for them but it's six months, so they'll get over it. From Boeing's point of view, having this piece of junk attached to the ISS that won't -- that
they can't get back, or at least they'll have to deadhead it back. I mean, it's embarrassing, it's difficult, it's just downright weird.
CHIAO: Well, no question, it's a huge black eye for Boeing. And they have not had a good several years, you know, in their airplane business and now
in their space business. So, you know, they got a brand new CEO. He's been tasked to turn the culture around, hopefully they will transition back to
more of an engineering and technology-led company rather than, you know, an accountant kind of a bottom line led organization.
And they'll be able to recover the grandeur they used to have and the reputation they used to have. Very difficult to recover a reputation once
it illegit.
QUEST: Absolutely. All right. Back to you, sir. Back to you. Just give me a -- just tell me what it was like when you leave the capsule and -- or the
ISS and you're floating in space. I know you're a thorough professional and you're concentrated on the job in hand and you're not worried and the --
but what was that moment like?
CHIAO: Sure. Well, first of all, it is nothing like it's portrayed in the movies. You know, in the movies, you take just a few minutes to get this
suit on. You walk into this huge airlock, which vents the vacuum in a matter of seconds and then you float outside and you're listening to your
heartbeat and your own breathing. None of that is true. It takes hours to get everything together and prepared and to get into your suit, go through
all the checks.
It takes a while to go down to vacuum. The airlock is very small, because you want to lose the smallest amount of gas you can. You got to make it up
or you've got to pump it, you know, in and out. And then when you're outside, it's -- or when you turn the suit on, it's very noisy. There's a
loud fan blowing oxygen over your face, which is a good noise, but it's -- you cannot hear your heart for anything.
And you also -- interestingly, in the American suit, the pressure inside is so low you can't whistle, so you're not listening to your own breathing or
anything like that. And -- but the impression, I think, is what you're getting at. Once you go outside that view of space through the helmet
visor, you get your peripheral vision involved and it's spectacular. And it's surreal. That's the best way I can --
(CROSSTALK)
QUEST: Reading the notes and reading your comments on this. Can you get your head around the fact that A, it's a vacuum and that if, you know,
there's nothing there? And if you throw something, you'll go forever. But also, when you look out into the black yonder, it goes on forever. Can you
get your head around that?
[16:40:02]
CHIAO: You're right. And that's, you know, kind of like that word I use is surreal. It's almost like you're in a dream. You can hardly believe you're
out there. You're looking as you say, at the beautiful earth and then you turn and you're looking doubt out into deep space into the darkest black
you can imagine when you're on the sun side of the orbit. You know, you can't see the stars out on that part of the orbit.
And so, yes, it's -- it makes you think about a lot of things and also, you're very much aware of the risk. You're at a very much higher risk level
when you're out there. And I -- I'm in a state of all six of my space walks, I was in a state of what I call hyper awareness. I was very aware of
where my tethers were, making sure I was always attached to the station, you know, just knowing where all my equipment was and I wasn't going to get
things tangled up in my legs or anything like that. There are a lot of things to keep track of when you're outside.
QUEST: It's -- we've got a couple more minutes just to talk about this a bit more. Back to SpaceX and the Dragon, I sort of -- I thoroughly admire
what they're doing and I applaud and, you know, their record is tremendous and this is the future, as you say. But we, we have to bear it. Remember
that there's risk, real risk. I don't just mean theoretical risk. There is -- as we just -- as Richard Branson discovered with his craft as the
Titanic lot discovered when they went down there, there is real risk to exploration, and that can't be totally negated.
CHIAO: Yes. You're absolutely right. You know, there, there is risk in getting on a rocket filled with fuel. You've got pumps, you know, turbo
pumps that have to work and the rocket engines have to work and, you know, the -- everything has to stay together, right? Even on a vehicle that's
flown many times, you know, it just takes one careless, you know, something getting checked, right?
You know, could be -- could be all over. So, yes, there's definitely risk, and you have to be fully aware of that before you agree to go on --
(CROSSTALK)
QUEST: But Leroy, I'll bet, I'll bet a cup of coffee that if I was to pay for your ride up there, next time around you'd go?
CHIAO: Oh, yes, yes. Well, you know what, I would love an opportunity to go to the moon. You know it's interesting, astronauts, we think about risk
more with every flight you take and you're wondering, you're asking yourself, what am I doing differently this time, or what new experience am
I going to have that's going to make the risk the reward with the risk, right? So, anyway, I would love to go to the moon if you'd like to pay for
me to go.
QUEST: What's that famous line? Checks in the mail. Grateful for your attention, sir. Thank you very much indeed.
And that's QUEST MEANS BUSINESS back on terra firma. I'm Richard Quest in New York. Whatever you're up to in the hours ahead, I hope it's profitable.
Coming up next, World of Wonder. Not to the stars, but to Ho Chi Minh City.
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